The Supreme Court's Grand Bench in early November wrapped up oral arguments on the constitutionality of two cases involving marriage rules — one requiring married couples to choose and use one surname and the other prohibiting women from remarrying for six months after divorce. What is at stake is whether the two rules are compatible with the real situations people face in today's society. Apart from the top court's decisions, expected by the end of this year, the Diet should start work to change the rules to remove the unreasonable constraints they impose on people.

The Grand Bench, composed of the Supreme Court's 15 justices, usually holds hearings before handing down important rulings. Citing Article 13 and Article 24 of the Constitution, which respectively uphold the dignity of individuals and equality between the two sexes, the lawyers for plaintiffs in the two cases urged the top court to rule that the rules are unconstitutional, while the defense for the national government, the defendants in the cases, insisted that they are constitutional.

The plaintiff in the case over the remarriage ban period is a woman in her 30s from Okayama Prefecture who divorced her violent husband. She is seeking damages from the government, claiming that the postponement of her remarriage due to the six-month ban — which she characterizes as irrational discrimination — caused her mental anguish. The intent of Article 733 of the Civil Code, which imposes the six-month ban, is to avoid confusion over who is the father of a child born to a recently divorced woman. It corresponds to a separate clause stipulating that a baby born within 300 days of divorce is the child of the previous husband while one born at least 200 days after the second marriage will be considered the child of the new husband.